Blogul unui automatist

The road

Because we are talking about cities a few thousands kilometers from Bucharest (Munich and Nuremberg mainly), the transport will be made by plane. Of course, if you feel like a road trip, you could go by car, but it will take you at least 2 days to get there.

Both TAROM and Lufthansa have daily flights from Bucharest Otopeni to Munich, both early in the morning and later in the afternoon. Prices are usually around 120-150 EUR per return trip, except in Oktoberfest season. From Munich airport, there is the S-Bahn that can take you downtown or wherever your hotel is in the city.

To get from Munich to Nuremberg, you can take the plane (another 100 euros) or the ICE (high speed train), at about 50 euros the non-refundable promo ticket.

Rating:

Accommodation

The first time I was in Nuremberg, I stayed at a rather shady Mozart Hotel, an experience I don’t want to repeat. Fortunately, at my other trips I decided to use big chain hotels – both Accor and BestWestern have hotels for all budgets throughout Bavaria. This makes Germany compete win France at the number and variety of chain hotels.

You can safely pick a hotel in the suburbs of Munich for example, as S-Bahn service is regular and almost always on time.

Rating:

What to see

Nuremberg

Nuremberg is a little on the downside when it comes to sightseeing – in fact, except the Castle and a few small museums, there is not much to see. However, if you’re interested in Nazi reminders, you can take the tram to the suburbs for some WWII-related places. In downtown, you will find the famous “Way of Human Rights“.

Munich

Munich, on the other hand is a jewel of old architecture (as with many German cities, some of it was rebuilt after WWII) mixed with amazing 20th century architecture like the Olympic area and the BMW Museum and building.

Downtown

Many bikes on a pedestrian road
Metro (or U-Bahn)
The palace (Rezidenz)
Odeonplatz

Panoramic Views

TV tower – from the cathedral’s tower
Panoramic View. To the right of the picture you can see the BMW headquarters.

Museums

Hyperinflation before the War meant stamping the money instead of reprinting.

The BMW Museum

(Almost) Everything in Munich revolves around BMW. So it makes sense for them to have a huge museum, just across the street from the huge factory and headquarters. As a note, the BMW headquarters are registered as a historic monument in Germany.
BMW headquarters
The museum’s building
The first exhibits: the classic BMW 326…
…next to the future fuel cell…
…and electric cars.
BMW started with planes, the went on to produce motorcycles, cars and now even bikes.
They also have an impressive F1 tradition, both in the past…
…and present
And all that because of their great engines:

The car above misses a red button. Can you guess where it should be?
Well, probably in the gear lever, it’s a Bond car after all, right?

I’m ending the BMW Museum tour with one of the great-looking BMW art-cars. This one from Esther Mahlangu (1991)